URGENT! HP Procurve performance issues

DionRodrigues · 10-04-2007, 05:46 PM

Hello, there, I'm new :)

ANYWAYS! Jump ahead to the problem, just read the profile :P

Well, a week or so ago I started helping out in my schools Apple Mac computer lab. Last year the network was running great and we had a pretty insane (and skilled) student managing everything.

Since then, we've ran into some problems. First of all, we have 2 switches and a router connecting a server (an iMac 20 inch) to about 25-30 iMacs and eMacs with 512 and 768 MB of RAM, respectively.

This is how things are set up:
- A Cisco switch connects the school boards connection to our connection and then sends the signal to the HP Procurve switch

- The HP Procurve switch accepts the incoming signals from the boards connection (internet access), and also takes incoming DHCP requests from the schools 3 connected wireless routers (all Linksys WRT54Gs, all configured the same way)

- A linksys PSUS4 Print server router connects all of the schools machine to a print server located in the room (its not the only one, but all of the school machines have interconnected printservers)

The problem is not the PSUS4 or the Cisco switch. Since our resident student genius left, things on our network have horribly slowed down. Opening Photoshop CS2 on an iMac with 512 MB of RAM (Intel Core Duo) takes forever, and so does virtually every other program, under normal operating conditions (20-25 users logged on, basic art programs [Photoshop, Flash, etc] running locally].

Ping tests have showed a packet loss of between 5 and 25% simply going from the server iMac to the HP Procurve under normal conditions, pings from even the farthest located Mac in the room to the server, PSUS4 or Cisco switch are faster and have 0-5% packet loss. We are using CAT5 network cables of high quality, and this is getting out of hand. One small thing we think may be affecting this could be the location of the CAT5 cables running out from the server to the clients, since they are mounted and travel just along the top of the rooms power conduit.

Also, the passwords for the switch have been changed without the admins knowing, so we can't change those settings. Any ideas on what the problem is or how we can go about making things better? We could really use some input from this before we go to our next plan, which is to start from scratch and reset everything in the room.

Thanks a lot guys!

~Dion Rodrigues

10-04-2007, 05:46 PM	#1 (permalink)
DionRodrigues Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Canada Posts: 1 OS: Mac OS X 10.4.10	URGENT! HP Procurve performance issues Hello, there, I'm new :) ANYWAYS! Jump ahead to the problem, just read the profile :P Well, a week or so ago I started helping out in my schools Apple Mac computer lab. Last year the network was running great and we had a pretty insane (and skilled) student managing everything. Since then, we've ran into some problems. First of all, we have 2 switches and a router connecting a server (an iMac 20 inch) to about 25-30 iMacs and eMacs with 512 and 768 MB of RAM, respectively. This is how things are set up: - A Cisco switch connects the school boards connection to our connection and then sends the signal to the HP Procurve switch - The HP Procurve switch accepts the incoming signals from the boards connection (internet access), and also takes incoming DHCP requests from the schools 3 connected wireless routers (all Linksys WRT54Gs, all configured the same way) - A linksys PSUS4 Print server router connects all of the schools machine to a print server located in the room (its not the only one, but all of the school machines have interconnected printservers) The problem is not the PSUS4 or the Cisco switch. Since our resident student genius left, things on our network have horribly slowed down. Opening Photoshop CS2 on an iMac with 512 MB of RAM (Intel Core Duo) takes forever, and so does virtually every other program, under normal operating conditions (20-25 users logged on, basic art programs [Photoshop, Flash, etc] running locally]. Ping tests have showed a packet loss of between 5 and 25% simply going from the server iMac to the HP Procurve under normal conditions, pings from even the farthest located Mac in the room to the server, PSUS4 or Cisco switch are faster and have 0-5% packet loss. We are using CAT5 network cables of high quality, and this is getting out of hand. One small thing we think may be affecting this could be the location of the CAT5 cables running out from the server to the clients, since they are mounted and travel just along the top of the rooms power conduit. Also, the passwords for the switch have been changed without the admins knowing, so we can't change those settings. Any ideas on what the problem is or how we can go about making things better? We could really use some input from this before we go to our next plan, which is to start from scratch and reset everything in the room. Thanks a lot guys! ~Dion Rodrigues